Marin Cilic: I’m Playing The Best Tennis Of My Career, But I Want To Play Better

Marin Cilic advanced to his first US Open semifinal Thursday after thumping Czech rival Tomas Berdych 62, 64, 76. The semifinal is Cilic’s first since the 2010 Australian Open. And it’s quite a leap from a year ago when he was out of the game serving a doping ban.

“I feel I’m playing probably the best tennis of my career,” Cilic said. “I think what helped me also was the consistent play over last five, six months. This year I haven’t lost too many matches against guys who are lower ranked than me. That’s always very positive.

“I’m happy, but I still want to do well. I feel that it’s still a lot to improve even in some matches. I, you know, want to keep going and even, Okay, now I made it to the semis and it’s completely different for me now atmosphere than what I have been in 2010. At that time was maybe a little bit, let’s say, too shocked for me and I didn’t know how to deal with it afterwards. But now I’m, you know, cool and it’s going well.”

The 25-year-old then talked about the journey back from the suspension.

“I was back in Croatia and I was training,” he said. “I was preparing for a time when I’m going to play. It was a difficult period. I didn’t know when I’m going to start back. But was also good period for me. I matured a bit more and I was working day after day. I wasn’t, you know, relaxing and doing nothing. So I think that helped me to improve physically. Also, it helped me to have, you know, enough time to put some new parts in my game, which are helping me to play this good now.”

Cilic’s return has also been aided by coach and former Wimbledon champion Goran Ivanisevic who made the US Open semifinals himself in 1996.

“Goran is everything but not boring,” Cilic said. “I feel that it’s very entertaining. We work a lot, but we still — I mean, even some days we are preparing, you know, we would have sessions of three, three-and-a-half hours or whatever, and we always have good time. I think that’s most important. It’s, I would say, can’t be better.

Cilic has beaten Kevin Anderson, Gilles Simon and Berdych. He’ll meet Roger Federer in the Saturday semifinals for a berth in his first career Grand Slam final.